How to Plan Classroom Icebreakers for Kids

Start the school year off right by letting classmates get acquainted with each other through some fun icebreaker exercises. These suggestions will also help you get to know your students better, too. The activities can be used as mid-year refreshers, as well, and be used for team-building activities to complement lessons that you teach. They are great for many ages; and you are sure to get a few laughs from your students. Read on to learn more.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Simple Icebreakers

1. Have the children look around the room for a while, examining their new classmates. Now have them find two things that the whole class has in common.
2. Have the students stand at their desks. Call out a trait, such has a dog, and all students with that trait remain standing. The other students sit down. Keep calling out traits until only one person is left standing.
3. Have the students stand close together in a circle. Now each student places his arms into the center of the circle and then grabs hands with two other classmates. Once everyone has a hold on to two people, they must now try to untangle the knot that was created without dropping hands.

BINGO with People

4. First you need to construct a 5-by-5 grid just like a regular BINGO card. See the link below for a printable blank BINGO card, if you prefer. You just need one copy of a blank grid for now.
5. Now write the word "FREE" in the center space. In all of the remaining spaces you will write things like "Not from this town," "Is the oldest sibling in the family," or "Likes to listen to rock music." Continue filling in the entire grid with similar sayings that would pertain to kids in your grade level class. Makes copies of this for each student.
6. The object is for the students to get the name of another student who meets any of the criteria on the card. They do this by mingling with each other. A student can sign another student's card up to two times. The first person to have all of his/her spaces filled in wins.

Tips & Warnings

• Don't force students to participate in these activities, if they are persistent that they do not want to.